Distichlis spicata grows in saline soils of the Western Hemisphere and
Australia. Numerous infraspecific taxa have been recognized in the past, but
none appears to be justified. Recent North American accounts of Distichlis
have usually recognized plants from maritime coasts as distinct from those
growing inland, supposedly having more congested inflorescences, but the range
of variation is similar in the two habitats.

López Soto et al. (2009) examined the leaf anatomy of six species and 11 varieties of Distichlis. They found that D. australis and D. palmeri differed from all other species and that D. humilis, D. spicata, and D. scoparia were anatomically similar but distinguishable. They found no characters or character combinations that supported recognition of infraspecific taxa within D. spicata. Harrington et al. (2009), on the other hand, found that inland plants, which Rydberg called D. stricta, differed from coastal plants in molecularly, cytogenetically, and in their phenology. On that basis, it seems that treatment of the inland plants as D. spicata subsp. stricta (Torr.) Thorne is warranted. The reason for no treating them as species is pragmatic, the lack of morphological characters for distinguishing them.

Distichlis littoralis grows in moist, sandy, saline soils along the coast of southern California and the southeastern United States, northeastern Mexico, and the Caribbean islands. It was previously placed in Monanthochloë but Bell and Columbus (2008) demonstrated that Monanthochloë is nested within Distichlis.

Common Name: saltgrass Duration: Perennial Nativity: Native Lifeform: Graminoid General: Rhizomatous to sometimes stoloniferous perennial grass with stems 16-60 cm, usually erect, sometimes decumbent or prostrate at base. Vegetative: Blades of upper leaves 1-8 cm, rigid and divaricate to lax and ascending, equaling or exceeding pistillate panicle, usually involute or folded. Inflorescence: Plants are dioecious, with male and female flowers on separate plants. Pistillate panicle 1-7 cm, often contracted and congested with 2-20 spikelets; spikelets 5-20 mm long, 4-7 mm wide with 5-20 florets; lower glumes 2-3 mm, upper glumes 3-4 mm; lemmas 3-6 mm, paleas with serrate and winged keels; caryopses 2-5 mm, tapered or truncate; staminate panicles and spikelets similar to pistillate ones, but lemmas with thinner texture and pales not bowed out. Ecology: Found on saline soils below 6,000 ft (1829 m); flowers June-September. Distribution: Native to most of N. Amer. except some of the midwest, nw CAN, AL; south through MEX to S. Amer.; also in Australia. Notes: Often forms dense mats and groundcover where it occurs due to its stolons, rhizomes, and densely tufted stems; often grows in moist saline or low-lying areas; distinguished by the flattened spikelets with many florets, and the distichous blades (blades have a 2-ranked arrangement, which forms a plane as they alternately come off either side of the stem). Ethnobotany: Taken as a laxative, for pimples, as a heart medicine, for gonorrhea, cooked into a gum to treat colds, for loss of appetite, as a condiment, and the leaves and stems were used for food. Also used as a grain source by various tribes. Etymology: Distichlis comes from Greek distichos for two-ranked, a reference to the leaf arrangement, while spicata means spicate, referring to the inflorescence. Synonyms: Distichlis spicata var. borealis, D. spicata var. divaricata, D. spicata var. nana, D. spicata var. stolonifera, D. spicata var. stricta, D. spicata subsp. stricta, D. stricta, D. stricta var. dentata, Uniola spicata Editor: SBuckley 2010, FSCoburn 2015, AHazelton 2015